Just a Taste
by infie
Summary: spoilers: Miss Mystic Falls. summary: Elena falls asleep in the hallway, and pulls Damon into a dream that takes an unexpected but inevitable turn. Now includes Damon POV.
1. Elena

She was standing in a bathroom.

It was stunning, opulent. _Decadent_. Walls clad with charcoal and cream marble tile, a fantastic mosaic floor cool under her feet; it was all overwhelmingly _rich_. She faced a double-sized stall shower with a three-quarter wall instead of doors, set tidily beside a tub sunken into the floor that could have seated four with enough room to stretch. The fixtures were old bronze, rubbed to a deep lustrous shine. All this luxury in a room bigger than her bedroom. As she shifted her feet, she noted that the mosaic was of a mermaid in the ocean, head thrown back sensuously as water broke around her.

"Oh," she breathed in awe. "I must be dreaming." Even as she said it, it felt right. A dream, then. At least her subconscious tastes had gone upscale. She lifted a single finger to touch the thick deep blue towels folded neatly on the heavy countertop beside her. The cloth was heavy and warm. She caught her breath, and a motion out of the corner of her eye had her spinning in place to look. She came face to face with the image of herself in a full-length antique oval mirror.

Instinctively her hand lifted to her chest. She was dressed simply in a knee-length pale linen shift, and it was dirty. So was she, as though she'd been gardening or running, or perhaps lost in more pleasurable pursuits outdoors. She blushed at the thought but smiled anyway. Her hair was loose, falling around her face in a dark curtain, and suddenly all she wanted was to make use of that incredible-looking shower; to revel in the luxury. Obviously her current state was just the excuse she needed.

She shed her dress rapidly, stripping out of bra and panties and heading for the shower with a grin of anticipation. It responded perfectly, steaming hot water pouring out of the ceiling in heavy sheets like a controlled waterfall. She giggled at it and stepped in unhesitatingly, reaching for the soap. It had a light spicy scent that niggled at her memory. Suddenly the answer came to her and she slammed it back into place, annoyance arrowing through her.

"Damon," she said furiously.

"Yes?" The smooth voice came from the door to the bathroom, and she shrieked and jumped, huddling closer to the concealing shower wall.

"Jesus! Dam... You!" She spluttered as the water splashed against her face, blocking her view for a few precious seconds. Finally she stopped coughing and found a lever that switched the shower to standard jets. She blinked water out of her eyes to glare at him.

"So it seems." He wasn't even looking at her, the bastard, instead wandering the room with that hands-on curiosity he always seemed to bring with him to private places. "I have to say, Elena, you have impeccable taste." He slanted her a sly look and a sideways grin. "I didn't know you had it in you."

Elena grabbed hold of her temper with an effort. "Why are you here, Damon?" She asked through gritted teeth.

He shrugged with one shoulder, examining a bronzed light fixture closely. "You called, I came," he said, his voice slightly muffled by the fact he was facing away from her. "Haven't we been over this before?" The glance he gave her over his shoulder was wicked.

"I meant, why am _I_ here," she corrected. She was starting to get cold.

"I don't know what you mean," he said.

"I thought the vervain meant you can't compel me," she explained, trying for the same level of casual he was pulling off so effortlessly. "Can't get into my head."

He turned from the apparently fascinating tiles, leaning back against the wall and kicking one booted foot over the other. He crossed his arms. The light played against the planes of his face, and his beauty struck her as it always did. She had to close her eyes briefly to regain her balance. "I can't," he said lightly. "Doesn't stop you from getting into mine, though." He cocked his head at her. "So I suppose the real question _is_ why am I here, isn't it?"

Elena's breath caught. "I'm in your head?" she demanded, her throat tight. "How did I do that?"

Damon shrugged again. "Dunno. Maybe when I force-fed you my blood some sort of a link was forged." He grinned. "I can't say I mind. You really do take me to the nicest places." A blink of the eye later he was standing right _there_, his nose inches away from hers. Only the wall separated his body from hers. "But," he breathed, "Never fear. Now that I'm here, I know just what to do."

Another blink, and the electric lights on the walls changed to flickering torches. The overhead cascade turned back on, pouring water over her at just the right temperature. Despite herself she gasped at the sensation. Damon's eyes dilated at her reaction, and he drew a breath that was ever so slightly uneven.

"You know," he said, long fingers lifting to the buttons of his shirt and deftly undoing the first. "I just realised," he lifted an eyebrow at her mockingly, "that I haven't had _my_ shower yet. How remiss of me."

"We are not sharing a naked shower, Damon," Elena told him firmly, ignoring how the idea made her stomach clench. The way his eyes half-closed told her he read her reaction anyway.

"Ok," he agreed easily enough, stepping back. His next breath was against the back of her neck. "How about this, then?"

She spun around, noting half-frantically that she was now in an incredibly brief bikini, made of a black material that clung but still ... barely ... maintained her modesty. Damon stood under the deluge, blinking at her through water-spiked black lashes. He'd shed his shirt but was still dressed in black jeans. Automatically she lifted her hands to his chest to hold him back. The slick skin under her fingers held a heat she knew wasn't real, was borrowed from the water. She stared into Damon's eyes from a foot away, caught in their intensity and trying desperately to remember that this was _Damon_ for Christ's sake, and that he was incredibly dangerous to play with. There was no way this would work, there was _no way_, and she loved Stefan...

"Jesus, Elena," Damon told her as the falling water shifted into something closer to a gentle summer rain. "It's a dream. No one can hold it against you. Live a little!" He slid one muscled forearm behind her back to squeeze her close, leaned forward that last distance and kissed her.

So, that's what sin tastes like, she thought wildly as his lips moved against hers, coaxing her into opening for his tongue. Like whisky and copper and something spicy and addicting, something she couldn't name but knew to her soul she should be avoiding. Still, feeling the quiver of his stomach against hers, she couldn't bring herself to stop or care. Her hands slid up his chest, turning to fist into his hair as she moved to get closer. His arm tensed around her waist before he lifted her and turned them both, bracing her against the wall. His tongue licked into her mouth, surprisingly delicate in his demand for more. She gave it to him, wrapping her legs around his waist for security and because she wanted to get closer, damn it. She needed to be closer.

He tore his mouth free, nipping his way along her jaw and down her neck, hesitating over the pulse thrumming there before moving down to her collarbone. She dragged him back up by her hand in his hair. "Damon," she managed to gasp out.

"Elena," he replied, deliberately licking a stripe of water along the line of her bikini top, eyes never leaving hers. The heat in them made her shiver.

"Don't feed on me," she said, closing her eyes.

"It's a dream," he reminded her again. "If I bit you, it wouldn't be real." He rolled his hips against hers, dragging deep groans from them both. "No more than this would be."

"It would be real enough," she managed to grit out.

He lifted his head to look at her fully. His lips were swollen from kissing, his eyes faded to silver by the torchlight. "All right," he said slowly. "No teeth for us." He bent his head back to her breast, capturing the erect nipple through the wet black cloth and giving it a hard pull with his lips.

She bucked against him, but managed to bring his head back up. He blinked at her impatiently, widening his eyes so obviously to show his attention that it made her laugh. "I didn't say _that_," she told him.

It took only a split second for him to understand. "Ok," he said challengingly. "Go for it." He put his nose right to the tip of hers, showing his teeth. "Bite me."

She slid her nose along the side of his, dragging the very tip of her tongue along the line of his jaw. He waited statue-still, but she could feel the tremble start in his arms as she got closer to his neck, to that juncture of throat and shoulder that always smelled so good and felt so perfect under her mouth. She closed her teeth teasingly on his jawbone, licked his ear. The vibration under her hands grew. She took it slow, licking careful, deliberate little flicks along the big tendon of his neck. Despite the water sluicing down it tasted like him, and she found herself going even slower to savour the taste.

Damon's breath was coming in short gasps, and the tremors had grown to outright shaking with the effort of holding himself in check. His eyes were closed, his lips parted and his face tight with concentration. She wriggled closer, and then set her teeth into the side of his throat.

The noise he made was indescribable, something between a groan and a shout. His whole body shuddered in her arms, twisting helplessly to get closer, his fingers tightening against her hips hard enough to leave bruises.

She squeezed hard, though not hard enough to actually break the skin even in this dream. She placed her tongue against the thick thrum of his pulse, and sucked as hard as she could.

Damon's knees buckled, and he dropped them both sideways to one knee. His forehead fell to her shoulder, his arms tightening to the edge of painful without tipping over into too much. His breathing came out in ragged gasps in time to her sucks on his neck. "Elena," he muttered thickly. "Oh, God... _Elena._" She pulled him closer; ground her hips against his to line up his erection with the perfect place to send her over the edge...

A heavy thud brought her awake with a start, still flushed and aching on the edge of orgasm. Her eyes snapped open and met Damon's also blinking awake. He looked ... shaken.

"What the hell just happened?" She demanded, as quietly as she could.

Damon's face dropped into his perfect, expressionless mask. "I have no idea what you mean," he said.

"The _dream_," she hissed, mindful of Stefan likely listening only a steel door away.

Damon's face tightened even more. "I. Don't. Know. What. You. Mean." He enunciated clearly. He stood carefully. "I'm going to go change my clothes. I'll bring you something to eat, and to wear."

"Elena," Stefan called weakly from inside his prison. Immediately she went to the barred window. Damon took the opportunity to leave.

"I'm here," she said.

"Be careful," he gritted out, his eyes closed. "Damon - he can't be trusted. Be very careful."

"I will," she said. "Rest now. I'll be here."

She sank back down with her back against the wall, staring at the door to Stefan's cell broodingly. She meant it, she would be careful of Damon.

But now, she had the feeling that she also had to be careful of iher/i.

-30-


	2. Damon

He watched Elena fall asleep, appreciating the sweep of dark lashes against her cheeks. She really did look astonishingly like Katherine, a fact that their vastly different personalities usually kept him from thinking about. Looking at her now, though, her face soft and vulnerable in sleep and devoid of the things that made her Elena, it hit him like a fist in the chest.

She shivered, and the illusion was broken.

He sighed and took off his jacket, draping it over her before settling back against the wall. He wasn't sure what he intended to accomplish by joining her in her vigil. Perhaps he would gain brownie points for his good behaviour today, and by staying.

He snorted at himself and spun his ring on his finger. As good a story as any, he supposed. He tilted his head back against the wall to stare up at the ceiling blankly. It brought back his own latest incarceration powerfully, and he swallowed a vicious curse.

He hated that fucking ceiling.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"Damon."_ It was Elena's voice, and she sounded pissed. What had he done _now_?_

_He opened his eyes to find himself in a bathroom... an outright sybaritic one with marble and bronze and a tub big enough for an orgy. He cocked an eyebrow at it. It seemed little Elena had rich fantasies._

_"Yes?" He replied in his best 'vampire seductor' voice, turning his head to see her standing under a shower that was closer to a thundering waterfall. His eyebrow hiked higher. _

_Rich, _complicated_ fantasies. Something to remember._

_She shrieked and flailed wildly. Sadly, most of her delicious little body was blocked from his sight by a wall that reached her shoulders. He shrugged and turned to examine the wall, touching it with the tips of his fingers to test the texture. High quality stuff. He ran his hand over one of the towels, appreciating the soft feel of it even as he tsked. The marble actually had veins of gold running through it._

_"You!" She finally managed to grit out after a series of inarticulate splutters._

_"So it seems," he agreed easily, trailing a finger along the gold line as he continued along the wall. "I have to say, Elena, you have impeccable taste." A glance at the floor displayed a complex tile mosaic featuring an ecstatic mermaid being pounded by surf, and he shot her a wicked grin at the sight. "I didn't know you had it in you." He managed not to waggle his eyebrows at her, barely, and continued along the wall to the lights._

_"Why are you here, Damon?" She still sounded mad. Maybe he should have done the eyebrow thing after all._

_He shrugged. "You called, I came." He remembered the last time he'd said that and smiled at her over his shoulder. "Haven't we been over this before?"_

_She looked at him and visibly gathered her calm. She looked so cute, all sleek and wet, blinking at him with those knowing, sin-filled eyes. "I meant, why am _I_ here," she stressed. Her severe, haughty look was ruined by a shiver. _

_"I don't know what you mean," he said honestly, fighting back a grin as she shivered again. The detail work on the lantern was quite intricate. He poked at it and found it warm to the touch._

_"I thought the vervain meant you couldn't compel me. Can't get into my head."_

_He pursed his lips and turned to face her. Confident that the wall was solid enough, given the quality of the rest of this dream room she'd created, he leaned back and crossed his arms. "I can't," he told her brightly, "That doesn't stop you from getting into mine, though." Delighted, he tilted his head, in that way he knew drove her crazy. "So I suppose the real question _is_ why am I here, isn't it?"_

_"I'm in your head?" she asked blankly, completely thrown. "How did I do that?" She looked scared, and it made something in his chest twist. _

_"Dunno. Maybe when I force-fed you my blood some sort of link was forged. I can't say I mind. You really do take me to the nicest places." He needed to get that look off her face. He hated seeing her afraid. So, he acted. He blurred across the room, pressing his nose right up to hers. Her eyes widened in shock, and she instinctively huddled closer to the wall. He kept his eyes at the perfectly gentlemanly height of her own. "But never fear." He let his lips curl suggestively. "Now that I'm here, I know _just_ what to do."_

_A quick mental flex changed all the electric lights to torches, and spilled a fresh deluge of hot water down her back. She sucked in her breath at the sudden heat, arching away from the splash before automatically sinking back into the warmth with unconscious sensuality. It made him suck in a breath of his own. _

_"You know," he said slowly, widening his eyes in false surprise. "I just realised! I haven't had _my_ shower yet." He blinked at her, fluttering his eyelashes teasingly. "How remiss of me."_

_Her expression eased, the last remnant of fear smoothed away in the familiarity of her amused exasperation at him. That knot in his chest eased with it. "We are not sharing a naked shower, Damon," she chided him in that schoolmarm voice. It made him want to taunt her even more._

_"Ok," he said, then flicked into place at her back even as he changed their clothes with a tiny effort of will. "How about this, then?" She whirled on him in surprise as his breath puffed against the back of her neck. The water poured over him in a heated wave, soaking rapidly into the jeans he'd left in place. He licked his lips and blinked some of it out of his eyes. Her hands were hot little points of pressure on his chest, and he was surprised when she didn't shove him away. Instead, she stared at him with the fascination of a rabbit staring at the snake about to make it dinner, her face a mix of fear and shock and... longing. _

_"Jesus, Elena," he said, rolling his eyes and turning the deluge into a softer shower. She really had no idea how to have fun. "It's a dream. No one can hold it against you. Live a little!" He locked an arm around her back, yanked her against his chest, and kissed her. _

_She froze, and he moved his mouth a little against hers, tempting her into giving in. She opened for him, just enough for him to take advantage and delve a little. She tasted clean, like wine and rain. _

_He wasn't really sure what he'd expected, but it damned sure wasn't that she'd combust in his arms. She dived her fingers into his hair and tugged him closer, rubbing all that shower-slick skin against his. Heat surged through him and he picked her up, pinning her against the wall so he could ease his grip on her, so he could lick his way down her neck. He paused at the feel of her pulse under his tongue, tempted to take a _real_ taste, but fought it back and licked a stripe along her collarbone instead. _

_She dragged him up by her hand in his hair, gasping his name._

_"Elena," he answered, rolling his eyes up to look at her. She looked half-dazed and utterly edible._

_"Don't feed on me," she whispered, closing her eyes. Hiding from him._

_"It's a dream," he said. "If I bit you, it wouldn't be real." He ground himself against her, groaning at the resulting roll of pleasure. "No more than this would be." And he wanted it, Jesus._

_"It would be real enough."_

_He looked at her, licking his lips to chase the last of her taste from them. She was flushed and panting, her breasts straining against the tiny bikini he'd thought into place. Her hand was locked in his hair, her legs wrapped around his waist and urging him closer, but her eyes were earnest. _

_"All right," he conceded. "No teeth for us." The tight peak on her right breast was taunting him, so he bent his head and suckled hard, hoping to end the discussion there._

_Of course, it didn't. He groaned at her tugging on his hair again and lifted his head, widening his eyes at her in frustrated inquiry._

_"I didn't say _that_,__" she laughed at him._

_Intriguing. "Ok." He bared his teeth. "Bite me," he dared her. _

_Once again she surprised him. He'd thought she'd continue the playful mood, maybe growl and bite his shoulder. Something other than this slow, sensuous exploration. His breath caught when she kissed the corner of his mouth and started to nip her way along his jaw. He froze._

_All his concentration narrowed down to the subtle pressure of her lips as she slid with agonizing slowness across the corner of his jaw, stopping to lick his ear with a quick, eager flick of tongue that almost undid him right there. She gave a quick suck on the lobe, and his body tried to gasp but he was already holding his breath. He choked a little, almost panting when she left his ear and started her march down his neck. _

_He started to shake._

_His eyes closed as he tried to regain control of the sensations raging through him. He felt like his neck was on a direct electric line to his groin, with each tiny nip and lick shooting bolts of heat through him. His knees felt weak, and it took all his will to lock them into place. As many times as he'd done this, he couldn't remember the last time he'd been on the receiving end of someone licking his neck. He'd forgotten... the last time... the last time had been... _

_Katherine._

_Elena braced against the wall, wrapped herself closer, and sank her teeth into the juncture of neck and shoulder._

Detonation.

_He couldn't even hear the sounds he was sure he was making, his ability to think driven completely offline by the hot circle of Elena's mouth against his skin, blunt little teeth squeezing at his neck. His body jerked against her helplessly, mindlessly trying to get closer even as what was left of his brain was screaming at him for _more_. He swallowed, breathless again as the movement tightened the skin across his throat._

_Then she _sucked_._

_His knees collapsed, and only decades of muscle memory of catching swooning women saved him from simply going down in a heap. Instead, he crumpled to one knee, automatically catching Elena and hitching her higher, trying to give her better access to his neck. Jesus, he never wanted this to stop. Her mouth drew on him as hard as she could, sending bolts straight to his groin and threatening to blow the top of his head right off. He braced his forehead against her shoulder, trying to regain some balance. His arms tightened, trying to anchor her against him, trying to ensure she wouldn't _ever stop._ "Elena," he said helplessly, "Oh, God. _Elena_." She was taking him apart, with her hot wet body and her blunt little teeth, and Jesus Christ how was she _doing this to him_…_

_A noise broke through his haze. A door slamming?_

_He opened his eyes, and saw Stefan._

He blinked, and was back in the hallway, staring into Elena's flushed and confused face.

What the fuck was _that_?

"What the hell just happened?" She demanded.

Oh, what? Like this was his fault? "I have no idea what you mean," he replied calmly, retreating into coldness.

"The _dream,_" she whispered furiously, glancing at the door to Stefan's cell.

Stefan. Had he just been a construct of Elena's wishes, or had she dragged him in there with them? Either way, he needed to think. He spoke slowly and clearly, locking _whatever_ was going on in his chest down under iron control. "I don't know what you mean." He gathered his strength and climbed to his feet more awkwardly than he'd moved since he was a teen. His clothes were stiff, and he felt the start of a pounding headache. "I'm going to go change my clothes. I'll bring you something to eat, and to wear."

Stefan's voice sounded from within the cell, calling her.

Immediately he was forgotten as Elena rushed to the iron-barred window. "I'm here," she said, smiling tremulously at his brother.

He snorted and left, but still heard Stefan's weak words as he headed up the stairs. "Be careful. Damon - he can't be trusted. Be very careful."

He shut the door behind him at the top of the stairs and collapsed back against in, raking both hands into his hair and exhaling shakily. He could still feel the throb in his neck where Elena had bitten him so enthusiastically.

"Be careful of me, brother?" He muttered out loud, incredulous. "I think _I_ need to be careful of _her_."


End file.
